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Nucs for comb drawing factories

I have read a few places that nucs make good comb drawing (building) factories. If so what kind of comb do they draw out, brood or honey storage? I do crush and strain, and want to use some nucs to draw out frames to put on my production hives, for honey. If the comb they draw out is for brood, can I still use it for honey?

Re: Nucs for comb drawing factories

Depends where the frames are in the nuc. One story nuc box will often yield brood comb. The queen needs more comb space to lay, and I've seen her fill a frame with eggs as it's being drawn. If you build up your nucs into two stories, the bees will draw it and if they're on a decent flow, they'll fill the comb and cap it. The new combs can be removed when mostly finished, and replaced with foundation. Depending on the flow, how strong your nucs are, and how early you set them up, you can do this 2-3 times.

We had a good flow this summer, and my nucs drew out thousands of combs, and I harvested a couple tons of honey from them.

Re: Nucs for comb drawing factories

There's no distinction between honey comb and brood comb. If you use foundation they are all the same. The distinction is between worker comb and drone comb, the cells of the drone comb being larger of course.

Re: Nucs for comb drawing factories

Tagging on to what MP I added a third storey to three nucs that I didn't want to split - I had enough hives. Two of those drew out the frames and put honey in there straight away with maybe an inch of brood at the bottom at the most, and the third one made a tunnel of brood almost all the way to the top.
I had one oddball in 2 storeys that only put brood in the bottom 5 framer and wouldn't go up to the second level, and that second level got drawn out and filled with honey straight away.
I pulled honey from my nucs as well. I should be entering the winter with 18 nucs.
Getting back to your original question. There are several things to consider: As Bernsad said the bees make no distinction between the cells they use it for what they need to, but we may want to; If comb has been used for brood and not treated with miticides (or fed sugar syrup) honey can be extracted from it; It should be fine for crush and strain, but I wouldn't store it with extracted combs as I would be worried about the cocoons and pollen attracting SHB and wax moths.

Re: Nucs for comb drawing factories

The bottom box of the nucs will be small cell foundation, and one foundationless frame for drone or what ever. Any other boxes that are added will be foundationless frames. I was under the impretion that comb drawn out for honey, was larger than comb drawn out for brood. Thanks Steve